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— i. —
The first time they meet, Jyn is a freshman attendee at the national assembly for what is advertised on paper as a premier professional organization for students, but what she is rapidly learning is also an excuse for a wildly belligerent party thrown by an acclaimed multi-chapter student organization at its yearly national conference.
After her best friend, Bodhi, attended the regional conference in the fall that had spanned a raucous gathering of the northeast and eastern chapters, he had begged her to go with him to the national conference that spring. When she finally caved it wasn’t because it was the fourth time Bodhi gave her a garden-variety persuasion speech about the ‘prospects for career advancement’ and ‘networking opportunities’, but because he had ended it with one last plea, “Come on, Jyn, it’s just going to be fun; I know you like to have that at least sometimes, right?”
The insinuation that she was being a stick-in-the-mud and the fact that he had known her long and well enough for the barb to stick was hard to ignore. So here she was.
The nationals conference celebrations didn’t run that much differently than your typical college-aged student party, but what made it more ludicrously glorious is that 1) it was happening at a professionally linked, national student organization’s annual conference and 2) it was a gathering of 18-26 year old university students, away from the campuses where they lived the daily grind, stuffed up in a convention-sized hotel for the weekend.
Needless to say, the collegiate debauchery was definitely present.
After a quick dinner from room service—a splurge of an expenditure for their variously-funded college budgets—Bodhi and Jyn head to one of the higher floors in the hotel and find one of the first night’s parties, located in a connector suite of two side-by-side rooms, linked to each other by a door on the wall they share. It’s only 8:30 in the evening but with the morning’s opening address and first workshop starting in twelve hours, Jyn notes, the rest of her fellow attendees have wisely decided to start drinking early.
The writing desk next to them has had its accessories upturned and shoved aside to make room for a roster of liquor bottles of varying quality; a spill of dark liquid is threatening to seep under the phone pushed up next to the lamp. Jyn eyes the bottles. Most of them are hitting below or close to the halfway mark, meaning that the party must have started a good while before they arrived.
Bodhi, who she hadn’t even noticed left her standing there in the midst of the loud noise of the party, materializes at her side with two cans of beer. He wrinkles his nose at the selection of hard alcohol. “We’ll get drunk tonight but we can at least be strategic about it. Let’s drink just beer tonight and we'll do shots tomorrow.”
Jyn figures he’s just as nervous as her to be here because, if this were a regular party back home, he knows she doesn’t like to drink beer. She ruefully takes the can but offers Bodhi a smile. “Cheers.”
They clink cans. Jyn takes a sip before asking, “And your room key is...?”
“In my shirt pocket.” Bodhi pats the area on his chest with an assuring grin. “Don’t worry. Like I said, easy night first. We’ll get plastered tomorrow.”
It doesn’t take long for Bodhi to recognize some people he’s met before and wave towards them. Jyn leaves him to it and turns back to the liquor table, pouring herself a shot. If Bodhi was going to insist she get drunk here tonight, it would at least be with her intoxicant of choice.
Someone bumps elbows with her. Jyn stares down at the table for a moment before turning to the person to her right. He’s facing towards the desk where he’s putting down a stack of fresh new red plastic cups but when she turns to glare he turns to face her.
“Oh, I’m sorry if I bumped you,” the guy says. He has dark hair, facial features—a well-kept scruff of a beard, a smile, brown eyes that crinkle with apology. “It’s a little crazy in here.”
The guy is not bad looking—in fact, he checks off an exciting number of boxes on Jyn’s Attractive Attributes list—so Jyn decides to take a chance. Easy night for college debauchery, right?
— ii. —
That was last year.
This year at nationals, Jyn is ready. Jyn is ready for the crazy hell hole that is the national yearly assembly of this student organization, and she is prepared. More water bottles stocked at the ready in the hotel room to dilute the conference nights’ resultant hangovers into suitable, ready mornings. And there was the electrolyte drink powder; Jyn learned it was a good idea to pack that too. Then those “Emergen-C” vitamin C packets, because 1) colds were common to catch during conference weekend and 2) placebo or not, it additionally helped with her hangovers.
Other than that, some other silly, asinine things that found their way into her suitcase: an extra pair of professional-dressy-but-casual heels, another nice scarf instead of just one. And also, condoms.
Jyn still thinks about the guy she hooked up with last year, a guy from one of the western chapters named Cassian. On the first night of the conference they hooked up in a room after the initial party had moved on to another floor; the room had stank of alcohol but Jyn can remember the cutting bittersweet taste of it on his tongue, how hot and sweet his breath had seemed when he had panted by her ear.
They had started in the bathroom of the second room, after everyone ushered themselves out with the party’s next move. Jyn could remember hearing somebody running in to grab an item left behind, but other than that there was no one but her and Cassian, nothing but the sounds of their breaths, then the sounds of his moans and hers with the sounds of their bodies meeting; how her voice had sounded so utterly wrecked afterwards and how his had too.
It was funny at first how he seemed so shy, almost out of place when he had bumped into her at the table with all the liquor. He was practically sober. Then they took shots and chatted, and had more shots and chatted, until as the sounds of the last few people lingering in the next room petered out she had led him to the bathroom sink and then turned around to wash her hands, giving him time to come up behind her; she remembers how she had turned to towel her hands off cheekily in his shirt and then pulled him down to kiss her.
Cassian had pushed her back against the sink, leaning her back until she could only arch into him. Shit. She pushed only with the gentlest bit of resistance before he let off her completely, taking a respectful step back.
“Cassian,” Jyn had said. She didn’t want to say aloud what a gesture like that meant to her, so instead she stepped forward to brush her hand against his own, resting her fingers just slightly atop where his hand was at his side. “Are you...”
“Yeah, I’m good,” he had said, breathless in the sudden stillness of the room. Jyn can remember hearing the faint distant thumping noises of a bass line, most likely blasting from a speaker on a different floor. He then leaned down to kiss her again. And then they had—
Jyn shakes her head. Idiot. Cassian is, quite literally, the reason why this year she had included that item (a few of them, in fact) in her packing list. They had fucked without a condom and that could have really been anyone’s fault. The thing was that last year, when she was packing her suitcase the night before the flight out to the conference she just hadn't been expecting to have a wild night of collegiate debauchery at the national assembly for an acclaimed student organization for professional advancement. She had expected plenty of drinking, with or without Bodhi, maybe some new friend requests on Instagram to keep in occasional touch with. Maybe some snogging, if she was really feeling saucy. But on that night, Cassian had told her he didn’t have a condom, and she whispered back breathlessly, I don’t either, and proceeded to fuck him senseless. It was fucking good. It was amazing.
And they had fucked without a condom.
Jyn had spent the following weeks irritated at herself for not thinking about the possibility of sex at a college student conference. But she knew staying angry at herself about it was an irrational thought so she got over it and it was fine, and she got tested and all of it was good, so okay.
This year she packed condoms, in case she meets Cassian again.
But on that night last year, Jyn had deliberately let him walk her back to the elevator and left him there without anything more than her first name, and the chapter of the student organization they belonged to. Which she lied about. Jyn had thought, with a perverse amusement, that if he might think about, or even fantasize about the mind-blowing sex they had (like she knew she was going to...) he would probably look her name up in the conference’s program. Probably.
The following school year passed without her knowledge if he did or not.
But anyway.
Jyn is half-not, half-hoping that they might see each other again this year. His name was Cassian Andor, the program from last year had said. She thumbs through this year’s program, to the geographical list of attendees by chapter, to where Cassian’s name is displayed under the western chapters.
She is definitely hoping to run into him. And they do, on the second night.
The second night is when the next upcoming year’s board members for each chapter’s councils are announced before the student attendees are dismissed for the night to attend various professional social hours, before getting down to the not-so-professional social hours. Jyn’s pretty sure she has her election for her chapter’s ‘Student Liaison’ title down.
“And NHU chapter’s student liaison in the upcoming year will be Jyn Erso.”
Great; with that sealed in the bag she can go party tonight like everyone else. Aside from guaranteeing her participation in the upcoming year’s student-related events, securing a spot on the board will be good for her resume. Jyn settles into her chair, pushing down the urge to pull out her phone and text Bodhi the plans for the night; after all, even with the amount of drinking and messing around involved, this still is a professional student organization event, and that’s when she hears it.
“The FSU chapter’s upcoming ‘Student Liaison’ will be Cassian Andor.”
Jyn’s half-closing eyes snap open in a jolt. “What?”
“Cassian Andor,” Bodhi says next to her, nudging her side gently to wake her. “Isn’t that the guy you hooked up with at last year’s nationals?”
Jyn nods her head, almost imperceptibly. “That’s him.”
Bodhi tries to suppress his glee with an impassive frown, to Jyn’s giddy irritation. “He’s more good-looking than I remembered. So, what are you going to do?”
— iii. —
Last year at nationals, Jyn had met up with Cassian again and fucked him senseless—again. This year at nationals, however, she is running crazy with last-minute tasks for her chapter’s board.
During the semester, everyone on the board worked together, more or less. But Jyn has found that with long-term collaborative projects—in this case, planning their chapter’s attendance at the regional and national chapter assemblies—that is when a board’s leadership is truly tested. In that aspect her chapter’s not doing so hot; every board member is scrambling with last minute adjustments in the program all while operating under black curtain. Even though they might be mucking up a lot of details necessary for the trip to go smoothly, that doesn’t mean that the otherwise oblivious attendees need to see the beef between the trip’s university-mandated chaperone, Orson Krennic, and the board president.
Jyn does have her own beef with Krennic but that’s another bullshit trouble for another bullshit time. Right now, she is waiting at the hotel lobby’s diminutive coffee stand for seven lattes to kickstart the board’s morning huddle in ten minutes, before meeting up with the whole group. Her own caffeine is coming as an espresso shot she’ll down quickly before heading upstairs.
So, she’s in the middle of stirring a bit of sugar into her espresso at the stand next to the counter when she spots him.
Cassian Andor is standing in line for a coffee.
Jyn quickly looks back down to her tiny espresso cup, her brain refusing at first to make the connection. She only lifts her eyes back up to him for just a moment, but as if he had felt her gaze he turns towards her.
Shit, fuck. You’re kidding me.
Jyn is so nervous that her espresso has gone a little cold in the time for Cassian to place his order with the cashier and walk to her side of the counter. She gulps it down quickly as he approaches her, with surprise and delight on his face.
“Hey,” Cassian says by way of greeting. “Funny to run into you here.”
Jyn wants to point out that this is the only way to get coffee in the hotel outside of ordering room service, but really, the timing is coincidental. She’s about to say something else when one of the baristas calls out the rest of her order as ready.
“Let me go get that,” Jyn says before she turns to the counter, silently hoping her face conveyed what she couldn’t quite say to him: Please stay put, please stay there...
Cassian is still by the side counter when she comes back, two paper caddies laden with coffee cups at her sides. She quirks a half-smile while shrugging helplessly with her hands full, but then the barista calls out another ready order that must have been Cassian's and then he's back to her side, his own single coffee cup in hand.
“Can I help with one of those?” he says, grinning.
— iv. —
Last year, Jyn had ran into Cassian at the national conference again. But this year, he isn’t listed under the attendees list.
Jyn swallows her disappointment but not quite fast enough to escape Bodhi’s notice, who nudges her knee with his own. They’re seated in one of the conference halls and waiting for the morning’s first workshop to start, and while Jyn needed a little more time to wake up through the opening marks, after they had been dismissed to attend their first workshop she had plopped down on a chair in the back of the room to pull out this year’s program guide.
Bodhi only has to take a quick peek at the page Jyn has opened the program to before shaking his head in sympathy. Jyn already knows what he’s going to say to her after the first workshop during the 15-minute break: maybe instead of carrying on a quasi-situational-relationship over the past three years with this man, maybe you should have – I dunno, exchanged phone numbers, or something else typically normal?
But instead Jyn had carried on with this quasi-situational-relationship with Cassian. During last year’s conference they had mutually indulged in each other too; at last year’s nationals conference, Jyn was juggling a demand of tasks as a new officer, and Cassian had helped her carry a load of coffees up to the fourth floor where her chapter’s room block was booked. He had asked if she was planning on attending the Strategic Communication workshop after lunch which, yes she was—and they had parted ways after promising to save the other a seat.
Jyn remembered that she had walked into the breakout room for the workshop and saw him sitting in the second row of the classroom-styled arrangement of tables and chairs, with an empty seat to the right of him.
He smiled up at her as she took her seat. She had felt hyperaware of his presence by her side, which was silly because this was maybe the third, fourth she had spent time with him? But almost all those other times were—were hookups. Sexy times. Times they had spent having sex. First, in that hotel room during her first nationals conference, then the second time her sophomore year, after the mandatory meeting for first-time officers. This was the first extended period of time she had spent with him not having sex, and over the next hour she became acutely aware of the attraction she felt towards him as they sat together, side by side.
Still, Jyn took notes and asked questions to the panelists; she was an elected officer who wanted to help run her chapter of the student organization better, of course. Cassian, to his credit, took immaculate notes—including of her own questions—and with his neat portfolio and nice pens, Jyn couldn’t help but tease him. “Are you sure you wouldn’t do better as secretary of your chapter?”
Cassian’s hand had stilled in surprise, and there is something a little wistful in his voice when he replies, “Maybe.”
They didn’t talk for the rest of the workshop hour. But afterwards, when they were packing up...
“Which speaker were you planning on going to next?” Cassian prompted her, standing and pushing in his chair so she could pass to the aisle. Jyn had pull out her program to look.
“Two o’clock, is it? Mon Mothma for ‘Interpersonal Communications Matters’, Sheev Palpatine for ‘Establishing S.M.A.R.T. Goals’, and Davits Draven for ‘Informational Security as Advantage’...” Jyn made a face. “If I’m being honest with you, none of these sound appealing to me.”
Cassian nodded, then made a face of his own. “Neither do I. But Draven is a professor at my chapter’s college and one of the program advisors, so I’m expected to be there.”
It was then that Jyn had an idea. “I’d say I’d go with you, but...”
“But what?”
She had glanced down at her phone, mischief curling her lip. “Looks like I have a stomachache. I think I’m going to message one of the board members that I can’t make it to the next workshop hour.”
Cassian had looked surprised, then concerned. “Did you need to stop by the sundries store in the lobby? I know they have aspirin and antacid tablets.”
And Jyn had laughed, and told him no, I just want to see you in my room, and then they had parted ways.
Jyn left him with her room number and told him to knock in the next fifteen minutes. Which he did.
And they had sex. And it was good.
And this year, he wasn’t here.
The dimming of the overhead lights draws Jyn’s attention to the front of the room, where the glow of a powerpoint backdrop is cast over a solitary podium. If Jyn hadn’t been focused on the speaker walking out onto the raised stage she would’ve missed the slight movement in the shadows just off the side of the platform, where some of the speaker’s entourage are mutedly conversing with someone who seems to be one of the facilitators of the panel.
...is that Cassian?
— v. —
Last year, they didn’t have sex at the conference.
After that workshop panel where she had recognized Cassian at finished up, Jyn had made her way over to the A/V booth to where he was standing, talking to one of the techs.
He had been surprised to see her, sheepish, unreadable; and when she asked him what hotel he was staying at he glanced over his shoulder—an ear out for any possible gossips, she realized later—and informed her, voice apologetic, that he was one of the facilitators working with the program this year. That he had graduated last year and had been offered an opportunity working with the student org’s parent organization; he might even have potential for leadership in a few years.
Jyn stood there nodding, professional pleasantry frozen on her face. She knew what his words really meant: that it was fun while it lasted but there were now professional ramifications for their personal liaisons; she was a fling only for when they were both inconsequential college students; now that he was a working adult he couldn’t be caught fucking a board member of one of the student chapters; that’s it, so long; farewell, goodbye.
...Well, that wasn’t exactly what he said to her, but close enough. As much as she refused to take it personally, the involuntary conclusion of their yearly hookups, not even on her terms, stung quite a bit. This year, Jyn couldn’t get out of attending the conference after having been elected to her chapter board’s executive committee as vice president (to Bodhi’s president position, of course).
This year at nationals feels bittersweet, as her last national conference before she graduates. In the hotel lobby, Jyn and Bodhi check in the small flock of students that comprise their university chapter and disperse room keys to attendees, new and returning, in groups of four. She has her own fond memories of being a wide-eyed newcomer, oogling at all the other chapters of close and far-off colleges in attendance: the excitement at a weekend away from the stressful drudgeries of college life, unaware of getting on a rollercoaster of fun and professional, student life drama that comprised the next three days ahead.
Jyn had met Cassian at nationals during the tail end of her freshman year—by no means a freshman to college fun, but new to having that sort of fun at a national student organization conference. However, she hadn’t been expecting to do more than underaged drinking. He became the reason why she began to expect more than that.
That first year turned into two more years, and each of her hookups with Cassian were better than the last. That first year they had stayed behind in the hotel room after the party moved onto the next; he had her straddling him as she sat up on the sink, head swimming with booze and the dizzying scent of him. She remembers grinding into him, with drunken but cognizant insistence, until he had carried her over to the bed and let her fall back on the mattress, leaning just above her with a faint smirk until she squirmed beneath him with need.
She couldn't remember exactly how she did it that first time—definitely blaming it on the alcohol—but somehow she flipped their positions so that he lay back on the bed beneath her after they both lost their pants; and Jyn does remember how flushed his face and chest were as she tugged aside her panties while she lowered herself onto his leaking cock.
His hands had flown to her waist, and she steadied herself holding onto his wrists for that first languid rock of her hips forward. Her cunt stretched with the length of him; it was a welcome burn as she found, inhibitions lowered, that she didn’t want to wait to fuck him any longer.
In the year after that night, Jyn found herself thinking about it a lot. She had even wished, sometimes, that they had kept in contact.
She hadn’t been expecting to see him the next year, let alone with both of them as student liaison officers, but it happened. First-time board members had to attend an additional workshop on Saturday evening; consequently, it was the last to finish, so consequently, they hooked up in one of the conference rooms afterwards. The workshop itself had been more of a social mixer to encourage new and collaborative efforts between chapters, nothing too formal, so Jyn took the opportunity to meet some of the members from chapters she would be seeing at regionals in the fall semester; she found herself keeping tabs of where Cassian circled in the room while he, too, was busy making his own connections for his own chapter.
Jyn had dawdled by speaking to other attendees until she saw Cassian packing up his things. When she made eye contact with him, he smiled and glanced to the door. She had waited for him outside until he passed her on the way to the bathroom, and she hissed to him the name of the empty conference room two doors down as she turned discreetly away herself.
The door to the unused conference room was still unlocked but the lights inside were off; only the glowing green of the exit sign was lit. Jyn remembered how she had stood there in the dark, nervously shifting her weight from foot to foot, until the door clicked open and it was Cassian, and they had immediately met in a kiss, both relieved and robust in their attentions.
Then the door opened again and a janitor told them to get out. So they did. Not wanting to return to their rooms, no doubt where roommates were getting ready for another night of partying, Cassian and Jyn had gone to find the scarcely-used stairwell of a fire escape and hooked up there.
Jyn hadn’t expected Cassian to go along with her cheeky suggestion of the stairwell, honestly. But she was glad he did. She had first pushed up on her toes to kiss him back against the concrete wall, but after impatient hands had pulled and tugged off restrictive articles of clothing he had her back pressed against the wall as he pushed in with steady rocks of his hips to enter her. She couldn’t suppress her shiver of delight, or the breathless moan she breathed into the air by his ear. He fucked her to his own rhythm, which pulsed in time to hers; she could feel his fingers in her hair from where his palm cushioned the back of her head against the concrete wall—which was cold against the back of her blouse, a contrast to his own warmth as they were pressed chest-to-chest.
Her face was tucked into his shoulder; his other arm was around her back, hiking up her thigh against him. He supported her when climax left her boneless, murmured breathless words Jyn recognized as Spanish against her hair after he came with a groan a while later, and then they had made their way up the stairwell to their respective rooms on their respective floors, a little wobbly and content in post-coital felicity and bliss.
But, Jyn thinks, the following year—her third year at nationals—was when she fucked up.
It had gone so perfectly. Like something out of a movie, they had ran into each other at the coffee stand, and he accompanied her with aid back up to her room. She had loved seeing his cute smile go from confused and concerned to a co-conspirator’s understanding after she made plans for them to skip an afternoon speaker and meet in her hotel room.
It seemed unbelievable that after only two trysts he seemed to know her body so well. Without having to worry about any intrusions for an hour until the afternoon’s 30-minute break, this time felt slow and unrushed in comparison to last year’s frenzied fuck in the stairwell. She had pulled off the day’s professional attire of a blouse and skirt and lay back against the hotel room pillows in just her bra and panties; it was titillating being so undressed before Cassian, who decided to take his own time to remove his clothes.
Jyn had grinned and pulled him in for a kiss, whispering that she liked how he looked, fully clothed with only his tie loosened and jacket set aside, with the sleeves of his button-up rolled up to his elbows. She had liked the feel of her bare legs sliding against the fabric of his trousers before their foreplay got too hot for Cassian’s liking and he pulled back to undress further. It felt so good for him to collapse into the pillows next to her afterwards and for her to—to cuddle close, moving closer to him until he turned onto his side to pull her to his chest. They lay there not saying anything, until Cassian’s phone beeped with an event calendar notification signaling the start of the afternoon break.
Jyn let him get dressed and leave while she sleepily trudged into the shower, already sending a text to Bodhi that she’d be skipping the rest of the afternoon panels until the Student Engagement workshop—one that she would see Cassian again at. Pity, then, that she ended up oversleeping her alarm and only woke when Bodhi got back to their room after dinner. The guilt of inadvertently ditching Cassian by missing the workshop niggled at her mind, but it wasn’t until the next morning that she had the vague wonder that if that might have been the reason she didn’t see Cassian later that night during the conference’s Saturday night revelries.
Again that year, they hadn’t exchanged numbers, just the fond, sleepy-eyed affirmations they made to see each other at the workshop. Affirmations that she dropped the ball on. And maybe that was why... at this past year’s national conference, he rebuffed her.
It did make a lot of sense for him to do so, honestly; while Jyn is sure that the conference’s moderators, event staff, and working professionals involved get up to their own drunken shenanigans during the course of the weekend, there had always been an unspoken rule—stemming from the fact that this was a national student organization—that faculty should not mix with students, except for in professional aspects. Cassian had kept it professional when he had told Jyn that he was now working on the national board as a facilitator, and to her own credit, Jyn did too.
She barely knew the guy, in retrospect—if she knew him even the smallest bit, she should have known that he would be graduating that year, looking for a real job. She felt an aberrant guilt that she hadn’t gotten to know him either.
She was just... too busy getting to know him in other ways, that’s all.
And all good things had to come to an end, anyway. Still, Jyn wonders if she’s going to run into Cassian again this year. And she does.
This year, they run into each other at the hotel lobby bar, which is full of conference attendees milling about on the evening of the first night. She’s sitting at the bar, having a drink while waiting for a text back or something, when he materializes at her shoulder.
“Hey,” he says, and gestures for the bartender to make an order. Jyn looks at him, more than a little dumbfounded, and Cassian just smiles as he pulls out some money to pay for his drink. With drink in hand he says, “Is this seat taken?”
In the span of a few milliseconds, the tumult of everything she has experienced with this man for the past four years stoppers up Jyn’s voice, before it’s sluiced through with the sheer amount of yearning she has felt every year since then: she hopes that he can see it all reflected in her eyes, because she’s amazed to see it in his.
In the noise of the bar they both don’t say anything, not for a long moment; just like all their previous rendezvous, just one moment prolonged into perpetuity, just the two of them.
— v. + i —
That night Cassian had written down his phone number on the back of a receipt, which Jyn had found in her bag a few days later.
She had come home from that conference, indescribably elated. It had been her last nationals conference before graduating; she finds the stack of old program booklets from her years as an attendee stuffed into a box with other papers from college while she cleans out her room. After graduating college she and Bodhi became roommates, moving into an apartment closer to the city’s central business district as they started their working professional lives. It seems like such a long while ago, considering now that Jyn is packing up to move out and move in with Cassian.
Cassian Andor, the man she had met with multiple times over her college years during the same yearly event. It had taken five years to arrive at the conclusion that they liked each other enough to continue seeing each other afterwards, that they wanted each other enough to pursue something more substantial. She finds the receipt with his neat handwriting on the back—the front of the receipt listing the embarrassing drinks they had ordered at the bar that night as they talked—and tucks down a smile as she puts it aside to show him later. He would get a kick out of how out of all the receipts she habitually crumples up to throw away (while he was definitely the type to keep and sort his receipts) she kept this one.
Who would’ve known?